U.S. patent number 9,063,103 [Application Number 12/445,001] was granted by the patent office on 2015-06-23 for conveyor of specimen containers with spur units in laboratory automation systems.
This patent grant is currently assigned to INPECO HOLDING LTD.. The grantee listed for this patent is Gianandrea Pedrazzini. Invention is credited to Gianandrea Pedrazzini.
United States Patent |
9,063,103 |
Pedrazzini |
June 23, 2015 |
Conveyor of specimen containers with spur units in laboratory
automation systems
Abstract
It is described a conveyor of specimen containers (9) supported
by carriers (8) in laboratory automation systems comprising at
least one analyzer (10, 50, 60). Said conveyor comprising a main
transport unit (2), at least one spur transport unit (4-5, 7)
allowing the positioning of the specimen container (9) inside said
at least one analyzer (10, 50, 60) without removing said specimen
container (9) from its carrier (8).
Inventors: |
Pedrazzini; Gianandrea
(Paradiso, CH) |
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Pedrazzini; Gianandrea |
Paradiso |
N/A |
CH |
|
|
Assignee: |
INPECO HOLDING LTD. (Valletta,
MT)
|
Family
ID: |
38121883 |
Appl.
No.: |
12/445,001 |
Filed: |
October 10, 2006 |
PCT
Filed: |
October 10, 2006 |
PCT No.: |
PCT/EP2006/067241 |
371(c)(1),(2),(4) Date: |
July 27, 2009 |
PCT
Pub. No.: |
WO2008/043393 |
PCT
Pub. Date: |
April 17, 2008 |
Prior Publication Data
|
|
|
|
Document
Identifier |
Publication Date |
|
US 20100034701 A1 |
Feb 11, 2010 |
|
Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G01N
35/04 (20130101); G01N 2035/00326 (20130101); G01N
2035/0484 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
G01N
21/00 (20060101); G01N 35/04 (20060101); G01N
35/00 (20060101) |
Field of
Search: |
;422/50,62-66,401-405 |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Primary Examiner: Kwak; Dean
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Birch, Stewart, Kolasch &
Birch, LLP
Claims
The invention claimed is:
1. A conveyor for conveying a plurality of carriers, each carrier
supporting single specimen containers in a laboratory automation
system, said laboratory automation system containing analyzers,
comprising: a main transport unit connected by connecting portions
to spur transport units suitable to convey said carriers to
sampling positions inside analyzers associated with one of said
spur transport units, the spur transport units structurally
separated from said analyzers, said main transport unit being
provided with a main driving belt, each spur transport unit being
provided with a going driven belt and a return driven belt disposed
substantially parallel to each other, wherein each spur transport
unit has different dimensions and each analyzer has a recess having
dimensions corresponding to the dimensions of the spur transport
unit associated with the analyzer, said connecting portions
including an identifying device, a diverting device, a secondary
belt disposed substantially parallel to said main driving belt, and
a guide which ships carriers on the going driven belt of each spur
transport unit not disposed parallel to said secondary belt, each
spur transport unit allowing the positioning, by a blocking member
actuated by the identifying device of the specimen container in the
sampling position inside the analyzer, without removing the
specimen container from a carrier, and each spur transport unit
being provided with a reverse running device, including a friction
disc interacting with said going driven belt and with said return
driven belt to return the carriers supporting the analyzed
containers back to the connecting portions and to the main
transport driving belt.
2. The conveyor according to claim 1, wherein the reverse running
device comprises a disc mounted on a vertical screw shaft with a
vertical traction spring that creates friction between an upper
surface of the going and return belts and a bottom surface of the
disc due to the rotation of the disc and the opposite motion of the
parallel, adjacent belts.
3. The conveyor according to claim 1, wherein the spur unit
comprises a disc spur unit, a straight spur unit or an "L" spur
unit.
Description
The present invention concerns a conveyor of specimen containers
with spur units in laboratory automation systems.
In the '90s Laboratory Automation concept started growing due to
labour shortage, labour costs increase, awareness of the exposure
of operators to biological hazard and so on.
It has been in above said years that institutions like the
CLSI--Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute (formerly
NCCLS--National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards)
started working on recommendations for the manufacturers of
clinical instruments.
Some of said recommendations were related to indications on how a
new analyzer should have sampled a specimen container: said
indications are today known as "point in space" sampling.
Such recommendations were suggesting the position outside of the
analyzer where the analyzer itself, with its own means, should have
had to send the sampling probe in order to sample the specimen
container.
Said indications were aimed to get all the analyzer's manufactures
aligned to a standard to facilitate the design and realization of
automatic processing systems for specimen containers.
Said automation solutions are generally obtained with different
types of conveyor belts that move biological samples along a path
where the laboratory process is performed: such a process may have
different complexity including only part of the process tasks or
may be very sophisticated and accomplish almost any task related
with the laboratory process.
With analysers which are not CLSI compliant the only possible
solution is presently represented by the use of complicated robotic
arms and grippers capable to grip the specimen container out of the
its carrier and transfer it into their sample feeding systems. This
solution, generally known as "operator emulation solution", is very
expensive, complicated and generally not feasible for small
analyzers because of its cost.
As used herein, the term "specimen container" means a vessel that
contains a solid or liquid and has a tubular opening for access to
the contents, e.g., a test tube or vial.
As used herein the term "laboratory automation solution" means any
system that has at least one analyzer integrated into the system;
the system being capable to perform automatically the analytical
portion of the process.
Within such laboratory automation solution the specimen containers
are generally inserted into a carrier, which may (but it is not
necessary) have a tag (transponder technology) to allow its
identification along the process run and said carrier is moved
along the process by a conveyor belt and it is stopped, as
convenient, to execute automatically certain process task.
Object of the present invention is to provide a solution that
allows all of the analyzers that are not CLSI compliant to be
linked to a laboratory automation system that uses a conveyor
system to move specimen containers along the pre-analytical,
analytical and post-analytical process.
According to the invention said object is achieved by a conveyor of
specimen containers supported by carriers in a laboratory
automation system comprising at least one analyser, said conveyor
comprising a main transport unit, characterized in that it further
comprises at least one spur transport unit allowing the positioning
of the specimen container inside said at least one analyzer without
removing said specimen container from its carrier.
The spur transport unit allows to go inside the working area of the
analyzer, stopping the carrier with the container in a sampling
position of the analyzer.
The importance of this solution is due to the fact that most of the
analyzers are still not compliant with the CLSI standards as their
technology is still tight to technological constraints that are not
facilitating the "point-in-space" sampling and this situation makes
said analyzers almost excluded by the possibility of being linked
to a laboratory automation solution.
The concept of the present solution has been obtained by reversing
the idea that the analyzer should have had its own means in order
to sample, outside of its foot print, accessing the specimen
container that is presented on one side of the analyzer: the non
obvious solution has been the concept of being able to use an
accessory equipment to the conveyor system so to allow the specimen
container to reach a position, inside the working area of the
analyzer, where the regular pipetting tools of the analyzer can
sample the specimen.
The characteristics and advantages of the present invention will
appear evident from the following detailed description of an
embodiment thereof illustrated as non-limiting example in the
enclosed drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 is a top view of the conveyor according to the present
invention;
FIG. 2 is a perspective top view of a spur unit;
FIG. 3 is a perspective bottom view of a spur unit;
FIG. 4 is a top view of a spur unit;
FIG. 5 is a sectional view according to line V-V of FIG. 4;
FIG. 6 is a perspective top view of a second embodiment of the spur
unit;
FIG. 7 is a perspective bottom view of said second embodiment of
the spur unit;
FIG. 8 is a perspective enlarged top view of a third embodiment of
the spur unit;
FIG. 9 is a perspective top view of a spur unit with an embodiment
of a carrier reverse running device;
FIG. 10 is a frontal view of said embodiment of the carrier reverse
running device.
A conveyor 1 shown in FIGS. 1-10 comprises a main transport unit 2
(FIG. 1) and spur transport units, in particular straight spur
transport units 4 (FIGS. 2-5), disc spur transport units 7 (FIG. 8)
and a "L" spur transport unit 5 (FIGS. 6-7).
The spur transport units 4-5, 7 are connected with the main
transport unit 2 through connecting portions or pit lanes 6 (FIG.
1).
On said conveyor 1, along guides 14, run, by main and secondary
driven belts 11 and 40, detectable carriers 8 supporting specimen
containers 9 which are processed in analyzers 10, 50, 60 placed
inside a laboratory.
The laboratory also includes a container input/output module or
rack with a loading/downloading arm (not shown).
The conveyor 1 supports detecting sensors 12 (FIGS. 6, 8), for
example barcode detecting sensors, which control that a specimen
container 9 remains associated with a certain carrier 8 for all the
loop inside the laboratory.
In this way it is possible to identify the container 9 by its
carrier 8.
The spur units 4-5 comprise container stop devices 70 and, in the
end portions, reversing discs 13.
In FIGS. 9 and 10 is shown an embodiment of a carrier reverse
running device 200 which comprises a disc 13 mounted on a vertical
screw shaft 201 with a traction spring 202 supported by bushes 203,
with a nut 204 and a locknut 205.
The disc spur units 7 include further carrier stop devices 70
(FIGS. 6 and 8) and positioning discs 30.
An embodiment of carrier stopping devices 70 comprises a blocking
member 51 driven by a pneumatic mechanism 52 (FIG. 8).
About the operation of the conveyor 1 according to the present
invention, shown in FIG. 1, firstly a loading arm (not shown in the
drawing) puts a specimen container 9 from a sample rack module 20
in a carrier 8. Detecting sensors 12 read the carrier 8 and a
barcode reader (not shown) reads the specimen container 9.
Now a PC process controller or control unit knows that said
container 9 is associated with said carrier 8.
Between two analyzers 10, 50, 60, the carriers 8 are moved by the
main belt 11.
When a carrier 8 arrives inside or close to an analyzer 10, 50, 60,
the controller, by the carrier ID sensors 12, decides if the
container 9 supported by said carrier has to be processed by said
analyzer 10, 50, 60.
There are three kinds of spurs according to the type of the
analyzer 10, 50, 60 which might process the container 9:
1) a disc spur unit 7;
2) a straight spur unit 4;
3) a "L" spur unit 5.
In the first case, after carrier identification the carrier 8 is
deviated by a diverting device 99 on a secondary belt 40 of the
connecting portion or pit lane 6, which ships the carrier 8 on the
driven positioning disc 30 of the disc spur unit 7. When the
carrier 8 is in the sampling position 80 of the analyzer, the
blocking member 51 stops the carrier 8 and the analyzer starts the
sample pipetting operation.
In the second case, after carrier identification the carrier 8 is
deviated by a diverting device 99 on a secondary belt 40 of the
connecting portion or pit lane 6, which ships the carrier 8 on the
driven belt 41 of the straight spur unit 4. When the carrier 8 is
in the sampling position 80 of the analyzer, the blocking member 51
stops the carrier 8 and the analyzer starts the sample pipetting
operation.
Finally, in the third case, after carrier identification the
carrier 8 is deviated by a diverting device 99 on a secondary belt
40 of the connecting portion or pit lane 6, which ships the carrier
8 on the driven belt 42 of the "L" spur unit 4. When the carrier 8
is in the sampling position 80 of the analyzer, the blocking member
51 stops the carrier 8 and the analyzer starts the sample pipetting
operation.
In the last two cases the sampling position 80 is inside the
machine, in particular in the second case is depth inside the
analyzer.
The choice of the type of spur unit 4-5, 7 depends on the
arrangement of the analyzer.
According to the object of the present invention, the container 9
remains always on its carrier 8, so that the link between them is
never broken.
When the pipetting is finished, the blocking member 51 disengages
the carrier 8, the belts 41-42 and the carrier reverse running
device 200 send the carrier 8 to the connecting portion or pit lane
6 and finally to the main belt 11.
In the carrier reverse running device 200 (FIGS. 9, 10), the
rotation of the disc 13 is directly driven by the belt 41-42. A
correct setting of the traction spring 202 allows to generate a
friction between the upper surface of said belt 41-42 and the
bottom surface of the disc 13, being the rotation of the disc due
to the opposite verse of motion of the parallel adjacent belts
41-42.
Said reverse running device 200 is also usable in the main belt
11.
The container 9 is now ready for the next analyzer 10, 50, 60.
Usually in the laboratory there are further work stations, for
example a decapper station, a desealer station or a capper station
(not shown in the drawings).
When operations on a container 9 are finished, at the end of the
conveyor loop, the container 9 is gripped by a downloading arm,
separated from the carrier 8 and put in the rack 20.
The spur units (4-5, 7) allow flexibility inside a medical
laboratory, depending the conveyor arrangement on the building of
the analyzers.
* * * * *